Richard Ainslie takes a satirical view on festival survival essentials.
Album Review: Skepta – Ignorance Is Bliss
Print editor Richard Ainslie reviews Skepta’s latest album.
Album Review: Mac DeMarco – Here Comes the Cowboy
For his fifth album Here Comes the Cowboy, Mac DeMarco has one hand on his guitar, one on his pistol, and, it seems, only one eye on his music. He has always been chilled out, but now that he has won his freedom and moved onto his own label, Mac is relaxing to the point […]
Live Review: Hobo Johnson & the Lovemakers @ Bristol O2
Bristol is the waviest city in England, and home to a large portion of its freaks. On Saturday 22 January, every single beautiful one, of the hundreds who showed up to the O2 Academy to see Hobo Johnson, came dressed to play. Even the guy in his leaver’s hoodie. At a gig. Imagine. All over […]
Enter the Wu Tang Clan (36 Chambers): 25 years on
As America rolled into 1993, East Coast hip-hop was coughing and spluttering like a flu patient. Dr Dre’s G-Funk had led a takeover of mainstream hip-hop, with synth-heavy albums like The Chronic and Ice Cube’s AmeriKKKa’s Most Wanted near-ubiquitous in clubs and on the charts. True, talent blossomed in the alternative scene with the appearance […]
The Christmas Monster
November the 30th, the new clone awakes The old one is butchered and served up as steaks To the new one who chews them with shiny white jaws And gnaws on the bones with his manicured claws And out from the cave in the depths of mid-winter The world feels the touch of a […]
Populism in Poland: Law and Justice Party
When I arrived in Warsaw’s Castle Square there was a far-right rally going on. At least it looked that way. Polish flags with imperial emblems and placards with multiple exclamation marks poked out of the crowd of bald heads lined up like an egg box. As I watched they started rapping about Poland’s glorious history […]